Michele Chabin

JERUSALEM (RNS) — An ethereal city graced with sunlight so bright it turns the white stone skyline gold at sunset, Jerusalem is also an earthbound city whose teachers must be paid and whose garbage must be collected.

JERUSALEM (RNS) — ‘If someone had told me 10 years ago this would happen, I’d have said a Jewish state would never send desperate refugees away to their deaths,’ said Rabbi Susan Silverman, sister of comedian Sarah Silverman.

BETHLEHEM, West Bank (RNS) — Artisans in and around Bethlehem specialize in carving wood from a tree that makes several appearances in the Bible. They consider the work — a millennium-old tradition — holy. But clashes between Israelis and Palestinians threaten this year’s Christmastime sales.

JERUSALEM (RNS) — The president made the declaration despite world leaders’ warnings that the move would further incite an already volatile region and make it harder to restart peace talks between Israelis and Palestinians.

JERUSALEM (RNS) — The court’s kashrut ruling comes at a time of mounting legal challenges to the ultra-Orthodox religious establishment’s control over everything from Jewish marriage and divorce to who is considered a Jew and who isn’t.

(RNS) — “The removal of artifacts from a country belongs to the imperial era and this should not be happening anymore,” said Gabriel Barkay, a renowned Israeli biblical archaeologist. “It dates to a time when archaeologists thought the nations where they excavated were primitive and saw themselves as the guardians of cultural treasures.”